Kinokuniya, the Japanese bookstore with 75 stores in Asia, one in
Australia and eight in the U.S., is moving its New York City store from
Rockefeller Center to Sixth Avenue, across from Bryant Park, according
to Crain's New York Business.
The 24,000 sq.-ft. space will include three floors, a mezzanine and a
café. The new store will open in the fall; the old store will close
some six months later.
In recent years, the New York Kinokuniya store has attracted a greater range of
customers by offering more Japanese fashion magazines and graphic
novels. Two decades ago, 85% of the titles at the Rockefeller Center
store were in Japanese; now some 60% are Japanese. The Bryant Park
store will feature larger sections for fashion, anime and music.
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Good news from Beaumont, Tex.: 18 months after Hurricane Rita destroyed the store, Nu World of Books is about to reopen, the Houston Chronicle
reported. The store, which primarily serves the black community, will
have enhanced services, such as free wi-fi, a beverage bar and more
merchandise.
Owner Adekunle Odusanwo has been helped by a Small Business
Administration loan and lessons he learned at several jobs he's had
since the store was wrecked. "At the home furnishing store, he
developed an appreciation for lighting, store layout and efficient
records management," the paper wrote. "Working construction, he learned
the value of individual steps toward progress." The store's insurance
had lapsed before the hurricane hit.
Odusanwo also learned about the value of his store, saying, "I wouldn't
have known how the community embraced Nu World of Books if I didn't
experience the destruction of the old bookstore."
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Cook Inlet Book Co., Anchorage, Alaska, has closed, and owners Lynn and
Ron Dixon, who founded the store in 1993, have filed for bankruptcy,
the Anchorage Daily News reported. The 6,000-sq.-ft. space is still
partly occupied by A Novel View, the used bookstore that had moved in on February 1 (Shelf Awareness, January 26, 2007).
A Novel View owner Pat Tegtmeier said the landlord is allowing her to
stay through the month, and she is looking for new space. Since a
Waldenbooks has also closed, downtown Anchorage has no new bookstore,
so Tegtmeier is considering adding new books, magazines and newspapers,
although her first priority is finding a new site.
Bankruptcy court documents so far show that Cook Inlet Book's
assets are between $10,000 and $100,000 and it owes between $100,000
and $1 million to 203 creditors, according to the Daily News.
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Lone Creek by Neil McMahon, a HarperCollins mystery/thriller set in
Montana that appears April 3 (and is the first book edited by
marketer/sales guy/author and now editor Carl Lennertz!), was chosen by
more than 70 booksellers at the Pacific Northwest Booksellers
Association spring trade show last week as the BuzzBook of the show.
The booksellers voted after touring the show floor; PNBA called
competition "lively and tight."
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BEA's Saturday night benefit concert, to be held at Town
Hall on June 2, features Jon Bon Jovi and Amy Grant, both of whom have
books coming out later this year from Doubleday Broadway's Flying
Dolphin Press. Money raised at the concert goes to the Book Industry
Foundation, which is composed of the American Booksellers Foundation
for Free Expression and the Association of American Publishers' Get
Caught Reading Campaign. Tickets are $25 and may be purchased via BEA
registration form or at the Javits Center during the show.
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Laine and Alice Harling are closing the George Washington Bookstore
& Tavern, Concord, N.C., and leasing the space to the Natural
Harvest Food Store, which is adding a café, according to the Charlotte Observer.
The Harlings had founded the bookstore and tavern five years ago; their
daughter was the restaurant chef and their son a musician who played
sometimes at the tavern.
Alice Harling told the paper, "It's one of those old-timey family-run businesses, but we're all ready to do something else."
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The Second Story Book Shop, Chappaqua, N.Y., has been a favorite of the
town's most famous residents, Bill and Hillary Clinton, since they
bought a house there in 1999. Now the store has taken another step in
emphasizing the relationship, according to the Journal News. It offers
Clinton memorabilia that includes silk scarves, bookmarks,
commemorative coins, mugs, tote bags, CDs of speeches and watches with
prices ranging from $1.95 to $59.95--the items come from the Clinton
Museum Store in Little Rock, Ark., the only other place where they are
available.
"A lot of people drive up to Chappaqua to see where the Clintons live,
and wish they had something to take back to mark their trip," Connie
Fails, director of the Museum Store, told the paper. "I heard that from
so many people visiting the museum."
She wanted to find an outlet for the memorabilia near his home and
started first with Second Story. The former president "loves small,
independent bookstores [and owner Joan Ripley immediately agreed to the
proposal], so I didn't have to look any further," she said.
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In October 2008, Barnes & Noble plans another simultaneous opening
and closing. When it opens a new store in the Streets
at Southglenn center at the corner of Arapahoe Road and University
Boulevard in Centennial, Colo., it will close its store at 8555 East
Arapahoe Road in Greenwood Village.
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National Book Network has added the following former PGW publishers to its stable:
- Bell Springs Publishing
- Brick Tower Press
- Bristol Park Books
- Cadmus
- ExPress
- IBooks
- Learning Express
- Moonlight
- Para Publishing
- Planning Shop
- Smart Publications
- Tech News
- Windsor Peak Press
NBN said that inventory of many of these publishers is already in its warehouse and is shipping. NBN is working with PGW to pick up the remaining titles as quickly as possible.